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mad or even annoyed at him. Hell, Charlie was right. He was practically old enough to be her grandfather, a year short of fifty to her eighteen. Two years less and you were talking jailbait. But when she was with him he didn’t think about that much. Sure, she reminded him in a thousand different ways just how young she was. But most of those ways he relished. He could teach her things. Tell her about the old days. She was a smart young woman and she always listened and she always had a damn good question or two besides.
    And she didn’t remind him how old he was. That was part of it too. Quite the opposite.
    He’d look into the mirror mornings and he’d see the slight paunch that persisted despite his daily workout, the extra meat on the strong, wide shoulders, the graying hair. He wasn’t blind. But he never did feel his age the way some men did. He’d always had good health. In hospitals he’d never been more than a visitor. Despite the fact that he sometimes drank too much and always smoked too much for his own damn good. Either it was genes or so far he’d been just plain lucky.
    The smell of her hair, the touch of her skin and he could feel the years peel away. He was halfway back to a kid again.
    Middle-age crisis was what Schilling called it. It didn’t feel like much of a crisis to him. After all those years of helplessness and sadness and rage dealing with Evie’s cancer it felt like a godsend. And he’d resolved not to think too hard on it, not to worry the thing to death. Not even to worry about Sally’s mother and father too much, though her father was a man with some clout in Sparta and with a notable public temper. He’d resolved to be happy. Just that. And to hell with the rest.
    Speaking of happy .
    It was four o’clock. It was time to clean up and head on over to Teddy Panik’s place. He was pretty much done here anyway.
    He patted the dirt around the last of the violets and sprinkled it with water, picked up their plastic containers and walked across the driveway to the garbage cans and threw them away. After the good clean smell of fresh-turned earth the cans smelled especially foul. Tomorrow morning was pickup. He had to remember to set them out by the curb tonight.
    After Sally came by.
    There were weeds in the wheelbarrow—he’d dug them up and turned the earth for the violets—so he wheeled that back to the pine trees ridging his property and dumped the weeds behind them. He put the wheelbarrow, trowel, spading fork and sprinkling can back in the garage and slid the door down and locked it. Locking it, he thought about what he’d said to Charlie yesterday about the way the town had changed. He thought it was a goddamn shame. When the Palmers lived next door Al Palmer used to come by regularly to borrow his spade and pitchfork. Never asked, just put them back clean when he was through. It was understood they were his to borrow whenever he wanted.
    Now he hardly knew his next-door neighbors. Their names were Patowski, a good-looking couple in their early thirties and they had two young boys, seven or eight and no dogs or cats that he’d ever seen and that was about all he knew about them. They came and went like ghosts, vanishing into the car or appearing out of it with barely a nod or a wave.
    He showered and shaved and dressed and by then it was four-thirty. He left his car where it was in the driveway and walked the three blocks over to Teddy’s. On the way he saw the cat again, crossing warily over Linden Avenue.
    He wondered if Sally liked cats or even animals in general. He suspected she would but they’d never talked about the cat, the cat was still his sentimental little secret so he couldn’t be sure. He’d have to ask her. Be a shame if she didn’t.
    He thought it was a good idea. He really ought to take her in.

Chapter Four
    Sunday, August 3
Katherine
     
    He wasn’t tall the way she liked god knows and maybe not as smart as he thought he was and probably a little